We've done a lot of polling recently (I took this poll) on how people get their news and what sources they most trust. We wanted to find out more about why the Internet is in rapid ascendance, while newspapers are on the media endangered species list. (snip) When it comes to newspapers and how they have been impacted by the Internet, there is a consistent and significant ideological factor. Conservatives and Republicans don't like or trust newspapers, and Independents are not big fans either. However, if all Americans were liberals or Democrats, you would be buying newspaper stock.

That plus we can have our be voices heard (cf FreeRepublic, HotAir, PajamasMedia, AmericanThinker, et al) rather than having our letters flushed down the toilet by a lefty newspaper editor who refuses to even acknowledge other points of view.

I remember another article about the decline of newspapers that summed it up more or less as follows:

- Conservatives don’t read the newspapers because of their liberal bias;
- Liberals don’t read the papers because they are not partisan enough; and
- Moderates and apolitical types don’t read the papers because they are boring.

In my lifetime, I’ve met two people who argued that the MSM is actually biased to the right, on the premise that most of the outlets are owned by major corporations. Both of these people were bat$#!+ insane lefties.

6
posted on 07/03/2009 12:09:27 PM PDT
by ZirconEncrustedTweezers
(Whoever coined the term "foolproof" underestimated the ingenuity and determination of fools.)

You said — People trust the internet more because they choose their own sources

—

Yeah..., and I can put a little bit of a further refinement on that one, too...

I trust my own judgment (and most people do for themselves) and therefore, I choose those sites which match my judgment. And then, I use those sites as reference to what I was to show others for “proof” of what I say.... doncha know...

:-)

In other words, on the Internet — one *can always find* someone who matches your own judgment... and that becomes a “good source” for you to use...

Hmmm....

9
posted on 07/03/2009 12:13:43 PM PDT
by Star Traveler
(The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a Zionist and Jerusalem is the apple of His eye.)

"In my lifetime, Ive met two people who argued that the MSM is actually biased to the right, on the premise that most of the outlets are owned by major corporations. Both of these people were bat$#!+ insane lefties."

I trust the internet more because you can find all sides presented. On a particular issue, I usually collect as much factual information as possible, then begin to form the opinion based on what makes the most sense. That’s why I almost always wind up on the conservative side of the issue.

Newspapers present only one side of any issue— the one from the lib talking points.

I must say, though, the Fox “fair and balanced” usually drives me crazy because the Dem view is usually unfactual fluff, as they try to interrupt and shout down any opposition...

hh

16
posted on 07/03/2009 12:25:28 PM PDT
by hoosier hick
(Note to RINOs: We need a choice, not an echo....Barry Goldwater)

"People trust the internet more by default. Not because the internet is particularly trustworthy, but as a result of the MSM proving its untrustworthiness over decades."

The internet is reliably unreliable when it comes to breaking news or news gathering. But, it quickly becoming the gold standard for opinion, editing and analysis. Essentially, while a newspaper will only have a limited, finite number of editors, the internet has an infinite number of editors and fact checkers.

This was most prominently on display in the Bush National Guard memos hoax that was perpetrated by CBS. The 60 Minutes editorial process completely fell down because all the people in the editorial process wanted the story to be true. And, it didn't help that the person with editorial control also happened to be the story's reporter, the corporation's news editor and the face of the organization.

I for one will miss newspapers. I remember with great fondness sitting on my father's lap watching him read the newspaper and trying to read the same stories as he did as quickly as he did. Newspapers gave me my love of reading, not books. But, the newspaper and other traditional media businesses have no one to blame but themselves. They've set the conditions, based upon their preferred political narratives, of their own demise.

True, but there are plenty of “barf alert” articles on FR. And it is fun to watch the members tear them apart. Some are hard to tear apart and that is where real reasoning and learning happen on this site.

19
posted on 07/03/2009 12:29:40 PM PDT
by RobRoy
(This too will pass. But it will hurt like a you know what.)

Typical of Zogby, he concludes that those easily deceived conservatives, convinced of a left-wing bias in the media, simply don’t understand what they are reading, can’t distinguish bias from slick marketing and are pleased to fall for anything they are told just as long as it comes from a like minded blogger. His point...might as well read the NY Times cause that’s where all the “real” news comes from anyhow. And Zogby has a reputation of being a devout liberal. Darned if I can understand it.

20
posted on 07/03/2009 12:37:13 PM PDT
by Oldpuppymax
(AGENDA OF THE LEFT EXPOSED)

People trust the internet more because information on the internet can be challenged, unlike that in print media. Probably the worst newspaper I've ever seen was the old Austin-American Statesman prior to the internet.

So many of their columnists were brain-dead, it was unreal. The funniest of them was their music critic, Ed Ward. Ward ran a series of articles about one of the old disco clubs, and talked about how terrible their music selections were. The club invited him to DJ one night. The crowd hated his music selection so badly, they started throwing things at him.

They ran another article about the "poor homeless." They followed a guy around for a day to chronicle how rough his life was, and how difficult it was for him to find a job. In this sympathetic portrayal, he spent part of the morning getting stoned, spent part of the afternoon drinking, and wandered into one place looking for a job. I sent them a "letter to the editor," asking how many jobs the Statesman had for people who spent all day getting stoned and drinking. No response.

A couple of their other "feature writers" did articles complaining about how downtown businesses were so cruel to the poor. They complained about the downtown grocery stores getting upset over the theft of shopping carts, and the removal of benches from in front of businesses. I knew many of the business owners, and they told me they were tired of getting to work and spending a half hour every morning sweeping broken beer bottles out from in front of their stores, and trying to wash the urine smell away. They also said they were tired of losing business because the transients scared away customers and panhandled relentlessly.

The Statesman building had a secured parking lot with security cameras and rentacops to run people off. The Statesman was incredibly two-faced. They wanted all the other businesses to shoulder the brunt of having thugs and addicts standing in front of their businesses, but they kept them out of their parking lot.

22
posted on 07/03/2009 12:42:02 PM PDT
by Richard Kimball
(We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)

They ran another article about the "poor homeless." They followed a guy around for a day to chronicle how rough his life was, and how difficult it was for him to find a job. In this sympathetic portrayal, he spent part of the morning getting stoned, spent part of the afternoon drinking, and wandered into one place looking for a job. I sent them a "letter to the editor," asking how many jobs the Statesman had for people who spent all day getting stoned and drinking. No response.

LOL Great story - thanks for sharing.

25
posted on 07/03/2009 12:43:34 PM PDT
by GOPJ
(Raped five year olds can have voice at Washington Post -if we can raise the money to buy access.)

You said — True, but there are plenty of barf alert articles on FR. And it is fun to watch the members tear them apart. Some are hard to tear apart and that is where real reasoning and learning happen on this site.

—

Yeah, sure that happens and I can learn a lot that I didn’t know before, even if I didn’t believe what an article was saying, from what some people post about it. And that’s one of the good things about Free Republic, in that one can get several different viewpoints on it and see how well they hold up.

But still..., I do think that we all self-select various Internet sites and/or viewpoints that we’ve already come to the conclusion on, and we’re going to use them as our “authoritative sources” too...

And so, I’m not necessarily talking about a liberal versus conservative viewpoint, but let’s say (in religious circles, for example) one viewpoint of prophecy versus another..., we’re going to self-select the one that represents what we’ve individually found to be what we think...

Thus, the Internet is *favored* by many — because of this kind of mechanism at work. So, it’s not all all simply “black and white”, liberal versus conservative that we’re talking about here.

I think you see what I mean as to why the Internet is “favored” in this regard....

26
posted on 07/03/2009 12:50:19 PM PDT
by Star Traveler
(The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a Zionist and Jerusalem is the apple of His eye.)

My sympathies lie with the newspapers, and not because of any personal political bias. As a pollster who tries very hard to objectively measure and interpret the public mood, I have been assailed from both the left and the right. That tells me I must be correct most of the time. Unfortunately, neither the left nor the right sees it that way.

Typical of Zogby, he concludes that those easily deceived conservatives, convinced of a left-wing bias in the media, simply dont understand what they are reading, cant distinguish bias from slick marketing and are pleased to fall for anything they are told just as long as it comes from a like minded blogger. His point...might as well read the NY Times cause thats where all the real news comes from anyhow. And Zogby has a reputation of being a devout liberal. Darned if I can understand it.

The right doesn't see it that way because it is illogical if not demonstrably untrue. If someone is spinning, they have no compunction about spinning when they talk about the question of whether they are spinning. When the newspapers claim to be objective they certainly, obviously are spinning. Claiming to be objective is a self-negating assertion because subjectivity is nothing other than taking your own objectivity for granted. Accept that obvious reality and you recognize that complaints about "right wing bias in the newspapers" is just part of the spin.

30
posted on 07/03/2009 1:53:14 PM PDT
by conservatism_IS_compassion
(The conceit of journalistic objectivity is profoundly subversive of democratic principle.)

Having worked with quite a few newspapers, I can tell you that the editors are ideologically driven. The political cartoonists, the writers, the reporters, are all viewed through the prism of ideological belief.

Freedom of the press doesn't mean a reporter can write what he or she thinks. They can write what the editor thinks. Tow the company line or find another line of work. Newspapers also lived, since the sixties, in a cartel environment. Up until the late sixties, most cities had multiple daily papers. Starting then, and up until today, the daily newspapers have been dying. Houston, Dallas, Austin, etc., ended up with one newspaper. Until the Greensheet, Thrifty Nickel, and now, Craigslist, Yahoo, and other internet sites, if you wanted to get your ad out in print, you went to the daily newspaper. This meant that they could print pretty much anything they wished, knowing that the car dealers and real estate agents had to use them.

One of the guys I used to work for told me that one good ad salesman was worth five reporters.

I worked with a guy that was instructor for a college newspaper and got to know some of the journalism students. Believe me, when they shut down the newspaper and closed the journalism program the IQ of the college went up 10%. They were the kids that wore their hair in five different colors, flip-flops and cutoffs to class; just the laziest bunch of uninformed people on campus. But they knew everything. I have never met a bunch of people so mis-informed that had such moral certainty.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to be a reporter. They want to be editorial writers. The funniest, to me, was this one kid that couldn't have hit a single in a T-Ball game. He did the sports reporting, and actually, in a professional newspaper, wrote the headline that a team "Bawked" it's way to a playoff win. He didn't even know the meaning of the word or how to spell balk.

32
posted on 07/03/2009 2:24:31 PM PDT
by Richard Kimball
(We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)

I will miss the ideal of a free and unbiased press reporting straight news, giving the people the information they need to make up their own minds. Then again, I've always missed that ideal. So have the newspapers, only in a different sense of "missed", which is why they're dying.

People have always self selected their sources. The internet just gives them more sources. And it is actually quite easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Heck, when I first became a Christian I was STRONGLY a pre-tribulationist for several years. Then I read some interesting contrasting opinions, did some research and became mid-tribulationist. I did a lot more studying and became STRONGLY mid-tribulationist.

And the internet constantly solidifies my viewpoint, often due to the arguments made by the pre-tribulationists.

The internet really just impacted us in the same way the printing press did, except a hundred fold. And it is so big that, unlike ink and paper, nobody can control it.

34
posted on 07/03/2009 2:49:29 PM PDT
by RobRoy
(This too will pass. But it will hurt like a you know what.)

The internet really just impacted us in the same way the printing press did, except a hundred fold. And it is so big that, unlike ink and paper, nobody can control it.

You nailed it. We don't trust newspapers because we think a handful of people control the content. We know that the internet cannot be controlled. Too big . . . too many "on-the-scene reporters."

The Iranian riots are a recent example. If the internet did not exist, do you think we would have even an inkling of what happened there? We would only have Irania propaganda, filted through American propaganda.

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